Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies: A Triangulated Study

AbstractThis study is an attempt to investigate metacognitive awareness and perceived use of specific reading strategies of university students when reading a text in English. To this end, a questionnaire called Survey of Reading Strategy (SORS) which classifies reading strategies into three categories of global, problem solving, and support strategies, was administered to 194 undergraduate students across three universities in Tehran, Iran. In addition to the questionnaire, a semi-structured interview was conducted to either highlight questionnaire data or/and discover the probable strategies that learners may use but have not been included in the questionnaire. The findings demonstrated that undergraduate students are moderately aware of reading strategies and the most frequently used strategies were found to be problem solving strategy, followed by global, and then support strategy. The study reaffirms the effectual role of the context of the study in learners' strategic behavior, and concludes with the importance of encouraging the use of more global strategies among students.Keywords: Metacognitive Awareness, Reading Strategy, Survey of Reading Strategy (SORS)1. IntroductionOf all the four skills, reading appears to be the most important channel for English language learners to learn the language and communicate with an English language society both in academic and non-academic contexts. In non-formal educational system and self-study situation, reading plays a critical role for learners' life-long learning and its efficient use will enhance learners' progress and achievement (Anderson, 1999, p. 1). Also, in all academic fields, in order for the students to gain access to more knowledge and explore areas of science and technology, they do need to know how to read in English. This is also emphasized by Grabe (1991), who maintains that reading is the most essential skill for people who learn English as a second or foreign language in the academic setting. The importance of reading is highlighted by Strevens (1977) viewing its importance due to two reasons. 1) Reading provides an opportunity for the learners to be exposed to a great quantity of language use; 2) It offers the safest way for learners to continue their educational task. In EFL contextscountries where English is not widely spokenreading seems to be the most attainable language skill for students (Dubin, 1982). In such contexts, since English is a nonofficial language which is rarely spoken in social communities, and there are not many native speakers of the language, and also English multimedia is not as prevalent as those in ESL contexts, reading becomes the main tool for foreign language learning through which learners step the paths of language learning endeavor by being provided with huge amounts of language input. So, the importance of reading in EFL contexts doubles and more thorough research and studies on reading and its related variables become crucial.During reading, some amateur readers face some difficulties that hinder their understanding and consequently block further progress. To name a few of the major weak points for such unsuccessful readers, we can refer to the inability in keeping attention on their progress when going through the text, and dealing with problems when it becomes difficult to make sense of the passage. Such learners are not so adept in exploiting reading techniques that boost comprehension, and carrying out a reading activity seems too complicated and challenging for them. Also, they often select ineffective and inefficient strategies with little strategic intent (Wood, Motz, & Willoughby, 1998). So, it seems that the main problem with reading difficulties of the students is their lack of strategic knowledge or even in case of being aware of some strategies, they do not know when and how to use them. Some experts believe that there is a distinct lack of focus on reading skills (Grenfell, 1992, 1995; Erler, 2002). …